Pin the Tail to the Donkey
by The Death of Mayflies
Summary: A mysterious tale of tails, set amongst the street-wise and the street vice of Ankh-Morpork's seediest parts, complete with dos and donuts. Cross-dressing! Religious extremism! Negotiable affection! FINISHED. Please read and review.
1. 1

It was springtime in Ankh-Morpork, greatest of cities on the Discworld. During the daylight hours the birds and bees were keeping busy, ensuring that the circle of life turned once more on the Sto plains that surrounded it. But now it was night and a not-altogether-different, albeit more commercial activity took place in the area known as the Whore Pits, in the Shades. 

-----

The woman on the street corner was obviously impervious to the cold that still lingered in the night air, seeing as how she seemed to be dressed in nothing but an airy nightie1. 

She stood right underneath one of the many streetlights that spread a soft glow over the narrow street, which helped a little. Her wig of haystack hair fell in limp waves over her bare shoulders, leading the eye of the beholder neatly past the heavily made-up face and plunging into the fjord-like crevice of her cleavage, before sliding down legs that seemed to have gone on the street forever. 

The beholder in question, a man seemingly like any other, stepped out of the shadows of a doorway and walked up to the girl. A short conversation centred mainly on sums ensued, and then the two of them walked off into one of the darker alleys. 

For a long time nothing was heard apart from a wet, rhythmic sound, and then the man left.

-----

It was a day later, and tempers were frayed in the Oblong Office. Its regular inhabitant, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, Lord Vetinari, watched with interest as the other two persons in the room argued with each other. It wasn't often that people were upset enough to actually forget his presence, and the argument had been going on for quite some time now.

"You _know_ it's Guild business, Vimes!" said the first speaker. 

She was an imposing woman with an enormous bosom and a chin you could crack nuts with, a skill she seemed likely to demonstrate any moment now, Vetinari mused.

"The hells I do," replied Commander Vimes, hotly, "The sicko has been beating those girls to within an inch of their lives, and that _makes_ it my business!"

__

"No, it doesn't! Tell him, Havelock," urged the woman.

Vetinari leaned forward slowly, putting his fingertips together and looking over them at the combatants.

"Mrs. Palm _is_ right, you know, Commander," he said slowly. "The man hasn't killed anyone, and the Guild of Seamstresses insisted years ago that we abolish rape as a crime where they were concerned."

This wasn't a moot point, and Vimes knew it. The argument at the time had been that the Guild catered to all tastes, and if that included what the ladies of negotiable affection somewhat euphemistically called Hard Romance, then that was their business. Literally. 

The customer was always right, as long as he was willing to pay the often-hefty price, and the Donkey had done exactly that. That meant that he technically hadn't committed a crime, and the girls – those who had regained their powers of speech so far – had all agreed that this was the case. 

He knew that the Agony Aunts2 enforced the Guild's laws to the point, and administered their own justice swiftly and painfully when matters so required, but that wasn't enough for Vimes.

"Are you saying – _sir_ – that I can't go after this, this Donkey person just because he hasn't killed anyone yet?!" Vimes was fuming now.

"Exactly, Commander," said Vetinari, levelly, "I wouldn't dream of trying to tell the Guilds how they should conduct their business."

-----

And now it was late night again, two weeks after the meeting in the Oblong Office, and in accordance with the Ankh-Morporkian laws on simile and comparisons the moon hung in the sky like a big rock.

Again, there was a young woman standing on a street corner in the Shades. She too stood right underneath one of the many streetlights that spread a soft glow over the narrow street. She hardly needed to, though. Her mane of golden hair fell in enticing waves over her bare, tanned shoulders, hurrying the eye of the beholder onto the vast expanse of gravity-defying cleavage, before sliding down legs that seemed to go on forever.

This time, the beholder could hardly believe his luck.

-----

Mister Vimes had been adamant they do something, and had called a crisis meeting as soon as he got back to the Yard from the Patrician's palace. 

"I don't care what they say," he had growled at the assembly of Watchmen. "Some madman is stalking the streets of the city, and we're supposed to do nothing about it? I won't have it! Not in _my_ city!"

They had all looked at him with the blank expression that the ranks of every uniformed body of men give their superior when the latter is ranting. Every member of the Watch learned to look at their Commander's knuckles when he came back from a meeting at the Patrician's palace as a sort of barometer for trouble. Today they had been raw and bleeding . . .

"They say its _Guild_ business," he had continued, "Hah! I'm telling you, we _will_ find this so-called Donkey before they do." 

The collective blankness reached ballroom floor proportions.

-----

The young woman looked up at the moon.

As she did so, the shadows that had been hiding her face from the beholder before went away, and he was treated to yet another revelation. The woman was absolutely stunning. Unlike most of the other women working in this rather run-down part of the Pits3, this girl hadn't used make-up as if it were battle armour. She didn't need to, either. Men would be queuing for whatever treatment she would bestow upon them, regardless. 

On the edge of darkness, the man edged nearer, looking around furtively as he did.

-----

The silence in Pseudopolis Yard was rapidly approaching deafening heights when someone cleared their throat. It was done in the universal manner of someone wanting to say something, while at the same time hoping for some sort of official nod of approval before doing so. Nonetheless it was a risky gambit, because even throat clearing was known to have set Vimes off under similar circumstances.

Vimes stopped his pacing and looked for the source of the sound.

"Lance-Constable Visit? Do you have something to say? Speak up then!"

The watchmen groaned. Constable Visit-the-infidels-with-explanatory-pamphlets was the latest addition to the force, and had proved to be something of a nuisance to his fellow watchmen. He was always going on about religion, trying to spread the Word of Om, but even so nobody wanted him to be subjected to the Word of Vimes.

Constable Visit looked around nervously like people do when they find that they are suddenly required to speak _in front of_ people they speak _with_ on a daily basis.

"Well, sir," he began, unsure of himself, "You know how I told you that the Good Book of Om will always be of help to you in your hour of need?"

The rest of the Watch winced. This was suicide, clearly, and they were being forced to watch it. Vimes just waited, his jaw muscles working away at the cigar as if they were locked in a vendetta.

"Well, in the Holy Book of St. Ossory, there is a passage about the Most Holy St. Bobby, who _was_ a donkey, in fact . . . "

"You don't say?" Vimes interrupted him, causing another collective groan to erupt from the squad. Their commander didn't have much patience at the best of times, and these were not they.

"Oh, yes," intoned Visit, who the rest of the Watch now felt sure had a death-wish, "And it is written: 'Lo! When thieves came in the night to the Temple where the Holy Animal was fettered, the Righteous Ass, filled with His power, kicked them in the Holiest of Holies!'4."

Visit did the sign of the Holy Horns out of habit and then fell quiet. He was ashamed to admit even to himself that he enjoyed the older texts in the Book of Om more than he did the Gospel of Brutha. But it was one thing to confess to that sort of weakness during the Sacred Purifying Rites, and quite another to quote apocryphal passages to a non-believer. Vimes' stare told Visit that he had overstepped the mark.

"I didn't me—" he started, but Vimes intercepted him.

"Hah! Not a bad idea at all, Visit," he said, thoughtfully, "Yes, it could work. After all, that's how people hunt vermin of other sorts. Yes. We will use a decoy seamstress and catch this madman when he comes after her!"

-----

It is common knowledge that the moon's powers of attraction are the reason behind the tide's comings and goings along the shores of the Discworld's oceans5, but nobody knows why the full moon causes the change in lycantrops. 

As a young girl eager to discover the mysteries of her rapidly developing body and - above all - longing to gain the upper hand6 over her older brother Wolfgang, Angua – for it was indeed she – had once tried drinking several gallons of water right before full moon. She had heard that the human body consisted mainly of water7, and figured that this was probably true for human-shaped bodies such as her own, too.

Thus, she had reasoned, a body filled with more water would be more influenced by the moon, which in turn would somehow make her change more powerful.

What she discovered was that there wasn't an obvious connection between the two phenomena, but that there _was_ a distinct link between drinking a lot and having great difficulties in the bladder area. Many years later however, when her own powers of attraction had grown, she noticed that there were other powerful tools at her disposal in dealing with members of the opposite sex.

These she now put to good use.

As the man drew nearer, Angua checked once more to make sure that she was giving him a good look at her cascades of blond hair and voluptuous body. 

"Hello there, big boy," she said in a voice that not even Carrot had ever been privy to.

The man paused, looking around nervously. This really was too good to be true. When he was close enough to feel the full effect of it, Angua wet her lips and fired off a smile that was both dazzling and rated R, giving the prospective customer a rather stilted walk.

-----

Then there had been what Angua thought of as the Ordeal. 

She had taken for granted that she would be involved somehow, since the Watch only had a limited number of females in its ranks. There was Cheery, of course, but however much the issues of gender had changed in the last couple of years in the dwarf community, there was no way that dwarfs would be involved in the particular kind of gold-digging that went on in the Flesh Pots. Besides, the victims spoke of a human, even if they did so indistinctly. Only humans could _be_ that inhumane. 

So there really was no other choice but Angua. Besides, her special abilities8 made her even more suited for the job. But Vimes had insisted that she work with back-up for this one.

"Who's volunteering?" Vimes had asked, before quickly adding, "Not you, Captain!"

"But sir," Carrot had said, "You know that—"

"No. Two reasons. One: I need you here to take care of things, and two: You're much too well known. We want to catch this bastard, after all. Remember, personal isn't the same as important!"

Angua could see Vimes struggling just to say that last sentence, but Carrot nodded solemnly.

And he accepted that, Angua knew. Carrot's sense of duty had driven her crazy in the past, but she could see that it made sense in this particular case.

But the question remained then. Who could she work with?

-----

The man was right next to her, wetting his lips unconsciously and not even trying to get his eyes out of her cleavage any more, when out of the darkness came a sticky saccharine voice that insinuated itself between them like treacle.

"'Ullo, offendi! Wanna try some Klatchian delights?"

The apparition that approached them was quite small, but what it lacked in height it more than made up for in sheer intensity. 

Apart from a couple of copper plates at chest height the rest of the apparition seemed to be dressed in colourful semitransparent veils that would have been quite revealing if there had been anything to reveal. All that could be seen of the face was the eyes, that were painted with enough black kohl to sustain a whole party of trolls. 

The whole creature was inundated in a cloud of sickeningly sweet perfume and was gyrating its way towards them like an out-of-control dervish. As it did so, it jingled and jangled with a multitude of exotic jewellery.

"No—Bethi, no!" Angua called out, but it was too late. One look at the apparition had been more than enough to convince the already jittery customer that this was nothing for him. The sound of his footsteps rapidly disappeared in the night.

Angua sighed. 

"Listen, how many times do we have to go over this? You stay hidden until I call for you! We agreed on this, yes?"

The apparition said something in a sullen tone of voice.

"What was that? I didn't hear you . . . Bethi."

" I said 'yes, Sarge'," came the muffled reply.

-----

No one had been more surprised than he himself had been when he had suddenly volunteered. It was the first rule of how to survive as a member of any uniformed body of men – never, _ever_ volunteer for anything. There was always a catch, and yet here he was doing that very thing . . . 

After his first ever proper contact with women, which had occurred while he was abroad – hah! – he had felt an urge to get to know his feminine side better, and this seemed an opportunity as good as any. He stepped forward.

Vimes turned around when his eyes caught the unexpected movement, and stopped as they did a double take on the situation.

"Nobby?"

"Yessir," said Nobby, his ears reddening as the rest of the Watchmen began sniggering.

"_You're_ volunteering for this? You're volunteering for _this_?" 

Vimes paused for a second. Somehow that didn't seem to cover the extent of his surprise.

"You're _volunteering_ for this?"

That seemed to do it.

"Yessir," Nobby repeated. "Don't see why not, sir. Got my own outfit an' ev'rything, sir." 

Vimes' jaws went slack. 

"We-ell," he finally managed, "As long as it's alright with Sergeant Angua." He gave her a pleading look.

"I'm sure Corporal Nobbs and I will be able to work very well together, sir," she said.

-----

She had said it, and she had meant it, but now Angua wasn't so sure any more. 

There had been taunts, of course, mainly about the two of them working under covers together, but she hadn't had to endure a lot. After all, she was a werewolf, and so people thought twice about upsetting her at any rate, and if that wasn't enough she was also Captain Carrot's girlfriend, which meant that nobody wanted to cross her for fear of upsetting him. 

Nobby, on the other hand, had had to bear more than his share of comments concerning his new uniform, his chances of "meatin' women on the job" and so on, but had taken it all in his stride. And so they had begun patrolling the Shades in the hope of being able to lure the Donkey to come forward. 

Regrettably, Angua had had an accident earlier that month which meant that she couldn't make use of her remarkable sense of smell. She had run into Foul Ole Ron's Smell. 

Foul Ole Ron was the most successful beggar in town. He had developed a body odour that was strong enough to have a personality of its own, and together they made their living by following complete strangers home and not going away until they had got some money from them9.

Unfortunately for Angua, the Smell was able to move around town independently of its master, and one day she had turned a corner on Broadway and run straight into it. 

That had been three weeks ago, and even though the splitting migraines that had kept her in bed the first week had stopped, she still hadn't recovered fully by a long shot. This meant that she couldn't trace the perpetrator the way she normally would, and the frustration of it all was getting to her. 

She took a deep breath and remembered why she was here in the first place.

-----

"Why is this guy called the Donkey anyway, sir?"

Angua could tell that Vimes had been dreading this question. If ever he'd deserved his nickname "Old Stoneface" then it was now. His features were quarried granite as he answered.

"Because however cruel nature has been to this man in some respects, she still saw fit to be quite generous in others. You work it out for yourselves!"

Crooked grins began appearing among the Watchmen, and someone started tittering.

"You mean," said Sergeant Detritus, " dat he got really big . . . ears?"

"_No_," said Vimes, "that's not it. But there is a second reason for the nickname, too. Now listen up, because this isn't official, so you have to keep quiet about it, all right?"

The assembled troops calmed down again.

"The reason they call him the Donkey is because he has chopped-off donkey tails with him, and when he's . . . when he's done he . . . he inserts one of them where the sun don't shine." 

The quietness took on a new, sombre tone. 

"And if I hear so much as a whisper about that in the streets I'm going to have someone's badge, is that understood?"

The entire group saluted their commanding officer in silence. All that was heard was Detritus' confused voice, muttering:

"But dat's all der way over in Slice, isn't it?"

-----

1 Making her _a lingeree_, in other words.

2 Dottie and Sadie, whose advancing years had done nothing to diminish the fear they instilled in half the population of the city. Their handbags were the stuff of legends, and it was generally considered that they could beat any barbarian hero into a pulp and still be home in time for tea and scones and a nice hot-water bottle.

3 And that was saying something, being in the Shades!

4 Thus neatly reversing the usual pecking order . . . 

5 Actually it wasn't all that common. Some people believed the moon to be nothing but a gigantic Uberwaldian cheese, others were prepared to die for the belief that it was the moon-goddess Shineya's bathtub, and others still were convinced that it was nothing but a dragon-infested glow-in-the-dark asteroid and that tides were in fact caused by the rotation and gradient of the Disc as it swivelled over the backs of the four elephants on which it lay, but you know what I mean!

6 Or paw, as it were.

7 Contrary to what evidence she had seen later in life, which seemed to indicate that what the human body really consisted of was a lot of bloody goo.

8 As she had carefully phrased it when applying for a job in the Watch.

9 Much like adult sites on the Internet, in fact.


	2. 2

Angua suddenly felt tired. They had done this routine for two weeks now, and nothing. Not a trace of the Donkey anywhere. 

Her feet were aching from standing on the cobblestones in high heels all night long, she was shivering with cold, and now on top of it all she would have to deal with Nobby's insecurity. Again. 

It would have to wait, she decided. The problem was that they were fighting a two front battle. On the one hand there was the Donkey himself and the urgent need to catch him before he struck again, but on the other there was the Guild of Seamstresses, that didn't appreciate the Watch butting in on what they saw as their territory one bit. 

Mister Vimes had been successful in keeping them at bay so far11, but the Guild of Lawyers were filing new complaints with the Patrician on a daily basis now, so it was only a matter of time before the Watch would be ordered to seize their activities. The major guilds looked after one another12, and the Guild of Seamstresses was one of the most influential of them all, second only to the Assassins. Before long they wouldn't even be allowed to catch this creep, even if they could!

She sent Nobby/Bethi back into the shadows to his look-out post, and he went grudgingly, the bangles forcing him to walk like a Djelibeybi as he did. Angua looked at his retreating back, wondering for the umpteenth time if this whole set-up wasn't one big mistake. And yet it had started out so well.

-----

They had applied together for their preliminary guild cards the day after the meeting with Mister Vimes. 

The old lizard-like hag behind the counter at the Guild reception desk had given Angua a maternal smile of welcome, and then she had laid eyes on Corporal Nobbs in full attire. Chameleons would have gone green13 with envy if they had seen the bulging eyes of the receptionist right then, Angua thought. She coughed.

"My friend . . . _Bethi_ . . . would also like to become a seamstress, ma'am," she said. The two of them had discussed it briefly beforehand, but Angua still found it very hard to keep a straight face when she said Nobby's new name. 

"She is from somewhere in Al Khali, and has promised to teach me all the 967 secrets of the Seriph's Harem14."

This brought on a deep blush on what little could be seen of Nobby's face that would have had the lizard population sit up and take notes if there had been any present.

"Really?" said the receptionist, "I would have thought that some secrets are best left alone." Then she shrugged. What was the Guild coming to? She wrote their names in a ledger and on a pair of cards, which she proceeded to hand over to them, together with a list of various services and their respective prices.

"Here. You are now officially neophytes to our trade. This gives you the right to practice our profession for two weeks," she said, while managing to indicate with her tone of voice that two _lifetimes_ of practice probably wouldn't do Bethi much good. "After that you will have to sit an exam, and if you pass it you can join."

"Exam?" Bethi managed to look absolutely horrified in spite of the veil15.

"Oh, don't you worry about that, Bethi," Angua had said quickly, "I'm sure that to one who's so well versed in the secrets of love as you that won't be a problem!"

"I dunno 'bout any verse," Bethi said sullenly. "OW! What did you have to go and do that for? It's hard enough to walk in this things without you stompin' on my toes."

Angua's smile remained, but it was only because it was painted on. The Lizard gave them a look, for free. 

"Always ask for cash up front, always use Sonkies, medical check-up twice per month and the Guild gets fifteen percent of your net income, payable weekly," she rattled off. "Any questions?"

-----

That had been a crucial moment, Angua thought. Or at least she had thought so at the time. The Guild had stubbornly refused to tell anyone who wasn't a card-carrying seamstress about where and when the Donkey had struck, and so by necessity they had joined their ranks. And then she had asked.

-----

"I have a question, ma'am . . ."

"Yes, 'Fifi'?"

Angua almost winced. She didn't know much about the inside world of the seamstresses, but somehow she didn't think that the name she had chosen for herself was as suitable for a working girl as she had imagined it would be. It sounded more like a name for a poodle or a pet swamp dragon. The lizard woman's face certainly implied as much. She tried to ignore it, and struggled on.

"Well, I'm a bit worried about this madman I've been hearing about, ma'am," she said, and tried to look frightened.

"Yeah," 'Bethi' had added, looking up from the list that he had been busy trying to decipher, "We don't wanna end up gettin' donkeyed or anything!"

Lizard woman eyed them both suspiciously for a moment, and Angua almost thought the game was up when she leaned back and got a scroll out from underneath her desk. She held her breath and then had to hold back a sigh of relief when it turned out to be a map of the city.

"Don't you worry 'bout a thing, Bethi," the lounge lizard said, before shooting them a lecherous grin, "Remember, we take good care of our members!"

-----

Angua had felt sure at the time that it was the only joke the reptile-like woman had ever come up with, but that it was one that she was happy to repeat over and over again nonetheless.

What she hadn't done, happily or otherwise, was divulge any information on where the Donkey had attacked his victims. Instead, all she had done was direct them towards a little appendix of a dead end street on the map, which was to be their place of work for the next three weeks. 

And here they had stayed since, with little hope of getting out. The guild checked up on its members twice every night, when two little old ladies came around, ostensibly to hand out warm tea and a bun to the guild members, but in reality they were on the lookout for the Donkey. They looked like someone's grannies, but Dottie and Sadie were a lot more than that. They were the guild law enforcers, and the Guild's laws were the toughest of them all. Nobby shivered with fear every time they came around.

It wouldn't have mattered much if they had only been a pair of grannies, though, because their presence still meant that Angua and Nobby couldn't leave. Their absence would soon have been noticed, and then the game would have been up.

-----

Over in Pseudopolis Yard at his desk, Commander Vimes was echoing his sergeant's thoughts.

"The game is up, Fred."

"Why is that, Mister Vimes?" Fred Colon wondered.

"See this?" 

Vimes could swear without actually saying any bad words, and the way he pronounced "this" made it clear to the listener that whatever "this" was would take any other person the equivalent of a whole dictionary of blasphemies to describe.

"_This_ is a writ from the President of the Lawyer's Guild," Vimes explained, "And what it means is, as of now the Donkey is sacrosanct. No one apart from the seamstresses can touch him. Hah! You had better get over to Fan Tan Alley, Fred, and tell Angua and Nobby about it."

Sergeant Colon looked crestfallen from his commanding officer's bloodshot eyes to the document in his nicotine-stained hand.

"Is it really as bad as all that, sir?" he ventured.

"See _this_?" Vimes pointed to a blob of wax at the bottom of the page, and this time there simply wouldn't have been any dictionaries to look things up in. Any such book would have spontaneously self-ignited before its author could have finished it.

"This is the Patrician's official seal of approval! Get going, Fred. If they _were_ to catch him they would end up in jail for a long time. Now go!"

-----

Another potential customer sidled up to her. A greasy grin appeared on the man's face when he saw Angua close up.

"Hey, baby! Wanna try a real man?"

Angua automatically simpered coquettishly, while taking a look at the specimen in front of her. She groaned inwardly. He was a good five inches shorter than she was. Another schoolteacher type. What was it with her and schoolteacher types?

"I even brought my own Sonkies16! Extra large, see?" the man winked at her, and his lecherous grin broadened further still, until it threatened to take the top of his head off.

Angua had wondered about that. She had found out that Sonkies didn't seem to come in any size but extra large, which was ridiculous. She had gone home and compared the ones she had been given by the Guild, and found that the actual sizes varied a great deal, in spite of the fact that they were all supposed to be extra large. And then she had noticed the unobtrusive marks on the side of all the packages, and smiled. 

She didn't now.

-----

The one advantage of the alleyway was that it was secluded, Angua had said. From his hidden point of view, Nobby disagreed with this. The seclusion meant that he didn't get to meet any other . . . hem, hem . . . colleagues, and the Sergeant certainly didn't want him around, either. Nobby was sulking. 

This whole thing hadn't worked out the way he had hoped. Nobby had heard other watchmen talking, and even though he wasn't sure that he had understood everything, he felt sure that this wasn't right. Seriously, how was he ever supposed to get under covers if he was ordered to stand in a dark doorway on his own all night long? 

There was another client over by the Sergeant now, he noticed. They all seemed to look alike to him, like crossbreeds from an unholy union of accountants, priests and schoolteachers, and this one was no exception. He glanced over to the couple, knowing full well what would happen next.

Yep. There it was. The guy showing her a wad of money, leering at her, getting closer, almost touching, before _it_ happened. Wham! A look of dread on his face as she responded, before stammering a reply and hurrying off. Nobby knew that Angua had to get them close by in order to smell them, of course. What he hadn't yet been able to figure out was what the Hells it was that she said to make them take off like that.

-----

Looking at the disappearing figure, Angua made a mental note that she had to write another week's worth of fake receipt copies for tomorrow night, which she and Nobby would then hand over to the Guild with fifteen per cent of their supposed earnings. She was struck again by the vast difference between the harsh reality of Fan Tan Alley and the rosy stories that Birgitta Goodmountain sold in her little shop. 

Birgitta Goodmountain was a dwarf who had a small engraving business over in Gleam Street, where she produced books. They were cheap ten-penny magazines with smudged woodcuts that invariably told of how True Love Prevailed, and Angua despised and loathed them. Loathed them with such a passion, in fact, that she had bought and read every single one of them just so that she could fuel her anger even more. 

If Ms. Goodmountain ever got a job around here she would have a very different story to tell, Angua thought bitterly. 

She had had just about enough of this, she decided.

-----

He had had just about enough of this, he decided. 

And yet he hadn't done anything wrong! He was just doing what every right-thinking man had an obligation to do, namely teaching those whores a lesson they had deserved a thousand times over. He was the Creature of the One God, and it was their only duty to fulfil his every wish and desire, and yet when he told them so they laughed scornfully in his face! And now on top of it all he had finally understood that the Watch were on his back, too. 

But they would all be sorry! He would show them the errors of their ways, and they would come to see the Light at last.

The man hid in the shadows once more.

-----

11 Mainly by conveniently forgetting to mention Angua's and Nobby's undercover operation. 

12 Guild leaders were always rubbing up against one another. Or, in the case of the seamstresses, just rubbing, and often with lubricants…

13 And pinkish yellow, and chequered, and a rather attractive pale blue hue, and so on.

14 The Khalians are renowned for two things. The other is their meticulousness about the first.

15 The perception of the Guild of Seamstresses was that they didn't bother much with theory. Instead, they focused on the on-the-yob training.

16 Named after Wallace Sonky, pioneer in the rubber industry, without whose innovations the city of Ankh-Morpork would have been rather more crowded.


	3. 3

Angua watched until the man had disappeared in the shadows, but her thoughts were elsewhere. 

-----

She had gone to see the first of the Donkey's victims the day before Constable Visit had unwittingly come up with the idea for a decoy set-up. At the time, it was the only victim that had recovered enough to be able to talk to anyone, and she had gone there with a cold sense of dread in her guts. 

Commander Vimes had sent her, and she had a pretty good idea why. Just about the only one in the Watch apart from Carrot who could gain their trust, Angua had the advantage of being able to talk to the girls on a different level.

At least, that was what she had hoped for. When Angua arrived at the doctor's house there were other girls there as well, but Vimes, who seemed to know the doctor, had seen to it that she was taken in via a side-entrance where no one would spot her visit. 

She was brought into a quiet room facing a small garden, where the only piece of furniture was a bed. In it was a young woman, who stared vacantly out the window, but her eyes and mind seemed focused on a point far beyond the lilac tree outside. She didn't look at Angua or acknowledge her presence in any other was as she entered through the doorway. 

Angua could see straight away that she would never be able to depend upon her looks ever again17. The doctor, an old man with a kind face and knowledgeable eyes, had told her to expect the worst, but she wasn't prepared for this. Even werewolves didn't do this to people. 

-----

The man slid from one shadow to the next, doubling back, feeling the familiar mixture of lust and hatred grow as he made his way through the narrow streets of the Flesh Pots. 

He hadn't sated his needs for a long time now. Too long, he knew. Soon he would have to choose another one of the fallen ones to enlighten, but not yet. Not until he had taught the insolent Watch about the Creature of the One God. 

He felt in his pocket for the reassuring outline of the donkey tail in its bag. Hah! The papers talked about "the Donkey" as if that was significant. The lesser beings didn't understand, couldn't possibly conceive the true nature of the Creature.

But he knew, and he would show them the way to atonement. This one would make a perfect example. Now all he had to do was wait until they could be alone.

-----

In a different part of town, another man hurried purposefully through the darkness of the spring night.

Fred Colon hadn't argued when his commanding officer had told him what to do. He had seen the knuckle colour of the Vimes-o-meter, and knew that if he would have uttered another word there would have been Hells to pay. 

He had hurried out of Pseudopolis Yard, yanking his breastplate into place as he left the Watch house. His helmet was left behind somewhere, but that didn't matter much when all he had to do was run an errand such as this. If he hurried he could be over by Fan Tan Alley in little over fifteen minutes.

There was just one thing he had to take care of first.

-----

"Nobby!" 

The call caught him unawares. The Donkey wasn't the only one who had had to reign in his desires these last couple of weeks. Corporal Nobbs had had to learn how to curb his urge for nicotine, for instance, since it didn't do to light up a fag end if he was to remain unnoticed in his shadowy doorway. He had done this by mentally shutting out the rest of the world for long periods of time, a technique that had worked well, since Angua didn't rely on him anyway.

But now she was striding over to his hideout with a look on her face that made him scramble to attention. Nobby was jittery at any rate, since he had failed completely to come to terms with his superior officer's skimpy attire over the last couple of weeks, and things weren't made any easier by the way outlying regions of Angua moved when she was walking fast. 

His nicotine habit had a way of bypassing his brain at times like these, and this latest development had him reaching behind his ear for a dog-end with slightly shaky hands without him even noticing.

"Nobby! Come on out of there! I've had enough of this!"

"W . . . Why's that, Sarge?" he managed, whilst his hands, still unheeded, were struggling with the matches.

"Why? I'll tell you why!" 

Angua was struggling to keep her temper under control, Nobby could see, and that wasn't something you'd like to see in a werewolf, no matter how friendly and vegetarian she was under normal circumstances. He tried backing away from her, but only managed to bang his head on the long disused torch-holder.

"Because we've been doing this for two weeks now, and have absolutely nothing to show for it! Because there is nothing we can do to help the girls if we continue like this!"

Angua was venting her frustration on Nobby, and she knew it, but after two weeks of standing around in the cold, being accosted by self-proclaimed Casanundas18, she had had more than enough. She composed herself once more, trying to find a reason to stay on in this hellhole. 

Again, she thought back to her meeting with the girl.

-----

Angua hadn't said anything at first, but had stood quietly and looked out the window for what had seemed like an eternity, but probably wasn't more than a minute. When her acute hearing picked up that the girl's heart beat was fastening, she had willed herself not to turn around until the girl actually spoke to her of her own accord. When her voice came, it was slow and filled with pain, rasping and unclear, due to her lack of teeth.

"I wanna . . . thee 'im take . . . a dirt nap."

Angua turned around and looked the girl in the eye. Her name was Vaselina, she knew, and she was probably twenty-five. It was hard to know, since the Guild of Seamstresses sometimes took on babies that were left on their doorstep, and Vaselina had been just such a girl.

Being a guild girl meant that you were given a place to live and food to eat, not to mention a much sought-after education, and if you chose to do so – and most of them did – you could remain with the guild for life and make a good living that way18. 

"I . . . wann' 'im . . . to die . . ."

Angua hadn't known what to say. The fact of the matter was that if the Watch got to the Donkey first he was going to stand trial, and the Lawyer's Guild were known to be able to get anyone off the hook who could afford it. At the very worst he would end up in the Tanty, and that wasn't much of a punishment20.

Angua had left the room with a bitter taste in her mouth.

-----

The nights were still cold, as if winter was still fighting although its troops were being forced to retreat, so sergeant Colon had brought his own secret weapon to the battle. In one hand he carried a dozen donuts fresh from an all-night bakery on Sheer Street, right across the road from the Beggars' Guild.

Making his way through the outskirts of the Shades, he clutched the bag to his chest as a shield, as if to protect himself against the acres of nubile female flesh on display. Not that Colon was averse to female charms – he had been happily married for decades – but he was quite an old-fashioned man in some respects, and found it hard to know where to keep his eyes as various female voices made cat-calls and whistled after him.

He hadn't been brought up to deal with situations like this. Flustered like a slice of bacon in a frying pan, he hurried on through the narrow streets.

-----

Angua looked up again at the setting moon and reached a conclusion. There was no point in lying to yourself. She no longer believed that it was possible to catch the Donkey in this way, and even though she didn't exactly relish the thought of facing Vimes in the morning, it was still better than staying here for no reason whatsoever. 

"Nobby, we're going home. We've deserved a good day's sleep." 

"Yeah?" Nobby puffed nervously on his dog-end. "Mister Vimes'd go spare if he found out we bunked off, I reckon."

"It still beats standing around here, wouldn't you say, Nobby?"

"You'd take care of 'im then, Sarge?"

"Yes, Nobby, I promise I'll talk to Mister Vimes."

"Oh. Then what are we waiting for?"

-----

The man the papers were calling the Donkey was lying in wait in the shadows, patient like one of the big cats on the dry savannahs of Klatch, and, like them, unmoving apart from the involuntary twitch of the telltale tail.

He was prepared to wait as long as it took, because he knew that time was on his side. Sooner or later his pray would have to show, and when it did, the Creature of the One God would become the instrument of His wrath.

Aha! His work was upon him, for the One God had been graceful enough to grant him his reward immediately. Here came the lowly creature now. But there were others around, too. That wasn't good. He couldn't strike while there were people around. Only on his own with his victims could he commune with the One God.

He felt as if he was a rickety dinghy adrift on an ocean of hate, hate, hate towards all the insolent lesser beasts, but he would have to contain it within himself for a little longer, for the greater glory of His plan. He started to follow his pray, moving unseen through the labyrinth.

-----

Angua and Nobby made their way through the shadowy labyrinth of the Shades together the first couple of hundred yards until they came to a fork in the road. Here, Nobby had to turn left and walk through the Whore Pits towards the Yard and Angua would go to the right, cutting across Shamlegger Street and then straight on to her lodgings with Mrs. Cake's, where she had taken a room again for the duration of this job21.

They didn't speak much, just nodded to each other and went their separate ways. All that needed to be said had been said, and now all they could do was wait for the morning, when they would admit defeat.

Neither of them felt good about this, but Angua felt especially cheated. She had wanted to get this bastard so bad she could taste it, and that wasn't going to happen now. Perhaps she would see things differently in the morning, but right now she couldn't help but feel as if the universe was unfair to her personally, and she resented that.

She was so preoccupied with her gloomy thoughts that she didn't even notice the movement behind her as she trudged on.

-----

Nobby strolled through the Shades with an ease of mind that was new to him and quite unique. Normally, anyone who tried something like that was bound to end up face down in, or at least on, the river Ankh. But Nobby, too, had realised that dressed as he was there was a microscopic risk of anyone accosting him, and so he walked carelessly through the night, past groups of thugs and seamstresses, happily smoking his foul dog-end, only occasionally cursing when the veil threatened to catch fire.

It was a shame that they couldn't seem to find this weirdo, he thought. The man was madder than a whole bunch of alchemists, he reckoned, but then that in itself surely meant that it was only a matter of time before he made a mistake, and then the Watch would be on 'im like a tonne of bricks. 

He walked on, a bandy-legged dervish with smoke rings in his wake, without ever noticing that he had attracted company.

-----

Sergeant Colon was close to Fan Tan Alley now, and he felt that a little reward was in order after having traversed the Shades so successfully. He had opened the paper bag and was just about to send the first one off to see its Baker when he became aware of a presence behind him.

"Sergeant Intestine, isn't it?" said the woman. She had a husky voice that would make an ordinary greeting overflow with sexual innuendo. It seemed to fuse several synapses in Sergeant Colon's brain.

"Colon," said Colon, reddening, and then, with desperately good manners, "Would you like a donut, ma'am?"

"Well now, Sergeant," said the woman, her voice like a whole plantation of syrupy maples, "I've been wined and dined many a-time, but I've never been donutted before." 

She gave him a smile, batting her eyelids at him and making Colon blush harder still. His hand, still proffering the bag, began to shake as the lady touched his fingertips with his.

There was a bulge in the Trousers of Time, and for a moment the future was looking distinctly banana-shaped. Then things went decidedly pear-shaped.

-----

17 Unless she took up with a freak show, a treacherous voice had added in Angua's mind.

18 The Disc's supposedly second greatest lover, who had done wonders for the ladder-making industry

19 It also meant being given a name that was in some way associated with the seamstresses' line of work. In this, at least, Vaselina was fortunate compared with her sisters Fockette and Buggary. 

20 The Tanty was the city's main prison, where petty criminals were thrown together with the scum of the disc, thus making it an ideal recruiting spot for the Guild of Thieves, who were known to even organise evening courses for the inmates.

21 She had told Carrot about the need to be on her own even when she was off-duty, if she was to be able to keep up the pretence of being a seamstress, and he had been very understanding about it. That had infuriated her, but maybe it was for the best, considering. Where Nobby slept at night wasn't that important, since she felt sure that no one would follow him home.


	4. 4

Angua suddenly became aware of the sound of feet echoing off the walls in the street behind her. 

Furious with herself for not staying alert, she turned a corner and then crouched behind a couple of empty barrels close by a lamppost. She wanted to let whoever was trailing her get closer so she could get a good look at him. 

There was another noise, too, but she couldn't place it, which was rare for Angua. It was soft and squeaky, somehow, as if made by rubber and metal. She froze.

Her pursuer came closer and closer, and then, out of the night came the call.

"Buggerit! Millennium hand and shrimp!"

The shrill voice was clearly recognisable even though the inherent message wasn't. Angua's nostrils puckered up involuntarily, but thankfully the beggar seemed to be out on his own. The Smell was nowhere to be seen. Or smelt.

But there was someone else with Foul Ole Ron, she noticed, when the two entered the small pool of light. 

A female apparition of uncertain but advanced age was pushing a strange, wheeled wire-frame basket in front of her, filled to the brim with weird-looking bags. The two of them were seemingly engaged in a friendly conversation, although on what mental astral plane it was taking place, Angua didn't know.

The old hag – Angua had to assume that she was female – suddenly stopped in the middle of the lit area and faced towards the barrels. Angua knew that it was impossible for anyone to see her, and yet the woman was staring straight at her.

Angua tensed, preparing for something, _anything_, but when it came she was still taken completely by surprise. The old crone started to dance a jig.

She gathered her many petticoats in her hands and did a couple of steps, still looking very intently towards Angua's hiding place. Angua on her side stared in morbid fascination at the display. She could see the woman's spindly, hairy legs and varicose calves as she danced faster and faster. 

"Tuppence more and up goes the donkey," the elderly woman cackled with glee as she twirled.

Ron stood on her side, looking at her display with apparent admiration, but then you could never be sure with Ron. And then, as abruptly as she had begun, the old woman stopped.

She retrieved her strange, wheeled basket and the two companions continued their squeaky stroll as if nothing had happened.

It took Angua a moment or two to collect herself and register what had been said, and when she did the beggar and the bag lady had already turned the corner and disappeared.

Could it really be, she thought? Had the answer been there, right in front of them this whole time, and they hadn't seen it?

What was the saying again? Yes. You sometimes don't see the forest for all the trees, that was it. Such an obvious camouflage, and she had been tricked by it. And she called herself a hunter?

----- 

His muscles were like coiled steel springs now, almost vibrating under the pent-up tension, aching to release His wrath on the Lesser Creature in front of him.

He had waited long enough, he decided. The ungodly had to be punished once and for all, and only His fire would cleanse them. He threw himself at his victim, taking the Creature completely by surprise. 

But he had misjudged the speed with which the Creature reacted. Before he had a chance to get his hands on its windpipe to shut it up, the Lowly One had got its hands up to fight him off. It was futile, of course, since no one could resist His power, but it took him just a little too long to get through its defences.

-----

The night air filled with a horrified scream.

Angua swore under her breath and set off in the direction it had emanated from. The labyrinth that was the Shades offered a thousand secluded spots for the Donkey to strike at his victims, but this time she at least had the advantage of knowing how the Donkey operated, and approximately what he looked like. 

She raced on, gaining speed, swerving through the narrow alleyways towards the general area from which the scream had come, back towards Fan Tan Alley. 

Normally she wouldn't have bothered, but now she blew into her whistle in order to alert other watchmen in the area to the fact that a colleague was in mortal danger. Angua knew that Mister Vimes had placed as many men as possible in the vicinity of the Shades for this very eventuality, and they would respond immediately to this distress call. She ran on, all the while cursing her stupidity. If only she had realised things a little bit sooner, this wouldn't have happened.

The voice had been familiar, even though it had been distorted with terror. It was Colon's.

-----

He fought silently, not wasting any energy by making a sound, even though he felt His anger welling up inside like a cloud of fire, making him want to roar like a dragon. It was fighting back, flailing in desperation, but He had it by the throat. He could feel it's strength draining in the presence of His might. His were the Hands of the One God, and now the Mortal Creature would perish!! Such ecstasy, such infinite joy to serve Him!!! This truly was Enlightenment!!!!

His fingers, already clamped around the neck of his victim, closed their grip ever harder, ever firmer, effectively shutting off the air supply from his gasping, shuddering prey.

-----

Angua heard other watchmen running towards her as she dashed through the last couple of alleys towards her goal, but she knew that no one would be able to catch up with her. That was the way it should be. Angua made sure she kept in good shape1, and she didn't want anyone else to lay their hands on this one. He was hers!

As she turned the last corner she saw Colon's outline in the dim glow of the streetlight. He was up against a wall with a familiar-looking "woman" pressed against him. They were struggling back and forth, her hands around his neck, flecks of blood on his cheeks and a look of abject horror in his bulging eyes.

So she had been right, after all!

-----

1 It was a standing joke in the Watch house, but one that was never uttered when Angua was present.


	5. 5

Angua threw caution to the wind and herself over Colon's attacker, causing all three of them to come crashing to the ground in a great, big pile. She thrashed around wildly, trying to get a grip on the attacker, but Colon had landed partly on top of her, effectively pinning her to the dusty ground with his massive weight. 

A sharp pain in her side told her that she had probably broken a couple of ribs when his chest plate slammed into her, but adrenaline made it possible to bite down the agony. She saw Colon's would-be strangler get up on unsteady legs and stumble away. Angua groaned with pain and fury. Without changing into her wolf-shape she didn't know if she'd be able to throw him off, and in the meantime the Donkey might have a chance to disappear. 

She couldn't allow that to happen! 

But changing shape in front of people had always been a taboo to Angua, and so with strength born in desperation she pushed the bulk that was Sergeant Colon off her torso. 

She got to her feet, wincing with pain, and looked around wildly for the attacker while Colon scrambled away from her on his hands and knees. The "woman" was still there, standing only a couple of steps away, chest heaving and arms and hands raised, like a tiger waiting to pounce.

"You! Don't you dare to move!" Angua snarled, as she faced "her". 

Angua steeled herself for the attack of the madman, but when it came she was still completely thrown by it

-----

"What the Hells do you think you're doing, you slut?!" It was a muted screech, hissed at Angua and dripping with hate like venom. But something was wrong with it, Angua realised. It was altogether too light to be a man's voice. "Find your own customer!!"

"Er . . . What?"

Angua, dumbstruck, did a double take of the situation. She stared back and forth between the two persons in front of her – Colon in a huddle on the ground, still shuddering in shock, and the person who she up until a moment ago had been so sure was the Donkey still staring aggressively at her.

Grimacing as she felt her ribs grinding against one another, she assessed the scene one more time. Her acute hearing picked up the sound of the other watchmen getting nearer, fast. Realising she would have to act quickly if she was to be able to prevent her cover from being blown, she decided to back down a little.

"I'm sorry," she said simply to her adversary, "I thought someone was being attacked – the Donkey has got me all jittery. You know what it's like."

The woman – and now Angua could both see and smell that it was indeed a woman and nothing else – continued to stare at her like a pit bull for a moment, but then she seemed to decide to give Angua the benefit of the doubt.

"Honey, that tub of lard over there couldn't have hurt me even if he wanted to!" she said scornfully, indicating Colon with a tilt of her head.

"I didn't mea—", said Angua, and then thought better of it. "What happened then, exactly? Who screamed?"

"I just thought Blubber here would be easy money," said the Seamstress, who Angua now realised that she had seen around in the neighbourhood several times during the last couple of weeks.

"So I'm sweet-talking him, like," she continued unabashedly, "And I'm just checking on progress a little, if you know what I mean, pinching his banger, like, and the next thing I know he lets off this godsallmighty holler."

Angua nodded slowly, looking at the still shaken face of her colleague, sitting on the ground, licking the jam from the crushed donut from his jowls, and sighed inwardly. Poor Fred clearly wasn't used to the kind of direct approach to love favoured by the denizens of the Shades.

"I see," she said.

-----

The sound of sandals on cobbles was loud enough for the other two to hear it as well now, Angua realised, and suddenly several watchmen burst onto the scene, batons at hand and out of breath from the run. Angua saw the lumbering frame of Sergeant Detritus first, and then Carrot as a good second, followed by Constables Ping, Glodsnephew, Visit, Gimletsson and Moraine in rapid succession.

"Where is der Donkey?!," asked Detritus, waving his baton over his head in an agitated manner. The rest of them, apart from Carrot, shrunk back instinctively1.

"Did he get away?" he asked her, with a look of incredulity on his craggy face.

Angua lowered her head and turned around to where the girl had been, but she had slunk away in the shadows already.

"It's . . . eh . . ."

She looked at her assembled colleagues again, and noticed something. The only one who she was sure should have been here; the only one she was certain would have been close enough to hear her whistle was conspicuous by his absence. 

Nobby.

There was only one possible reason why he wasn't here with the rest of them, and that realisation made her hairs stand on edge. 

She started to back away, retreating from their questions as she began running towards where they had parted their ways. No time to waste! Their worried faces meant nothing to her now. All that mattered was getting to Nobby in time to prevent another tragedy – and it might already be too late!

"It's all a terrible mistake," she called to them, as she began ripping off what little clothes she was wearing, "Sergeant Colon will explain everything to you!"

The last thing she heard as she disappeared down the alleys again was Colon's voice, trying to deal with his ordeal. 

1He had had great difficulties with the standard-issue batons, which looked like toothpicks in his hands. Instead he had crafted a more suitable baton out of one of the hefty wooden poles that were normally used for sword practice, and the resulting club was thicker than Carrot's thigh.


	6. 6

When Nobby awoke, he was just in time for his second greatest shock of the night. An enormous, snarling wolf stood over him in the darkness, bared fangs less than a foot away from his face. 

"Arrgh . . . I . . . what . . . you . . ." he said weakly and tried to lift a hand to protect himself from the yellow set of incisors in front of him. 

In spite of the fact that it was general knowledge in the Watch these days that Angua was a werewolf, it was one thing to know that she was able to change shape into a carnivorous animal, and quite another to have the aforementioned beast at arm's length, especially if it was looking as if it was ready to show you just what that the aforementioned term meant. 

Nobby wet himself.

The wolf growled, clearly agitated, but then stood still over Nobby's prostrate figure, sniffing the air with a vehement look on its face. Then, apparently having reached a decision, it reached down and grabbed a large piece of silk from Nobby's already torn garment with its muzzle and tore off most of what remained of the skirt. After that it jumped off him, giving off a small yelp as it did so, as if in pain. It moved with an awkward gait, but disappeared rapidly into the shadows.

Nobby stared woozily after the she-wolf from his position in the gutter.

-----

A minute later, Angua appeared, wrapped in the remains of 

Nobby's attire.

"Phew, Sarge, you didn't half scare me!" Nobby said weakly, "What did you have to go and do that for?"

"Sorry, Nobby," Angua offered, "I had to get to you as fast as I could, and then when I found you I tried to get scent of your attacker."

"Thanks, Sarge. Any luck?" 

"I'm afraid not," said Angua, unable to keep a hint of defeat from creeping into her voice. 

Her already battered sense of smell had been beaten by a combination of fatigue and the overpowering scents of several dozen kinds of perfumes, not least Nobby's own cloud, making it impossible for her to trace any individual. 

Her head was throbbing and her side aching, but she had to keep going. They had never been this close, Angua knew. Not being able to use her nose properly made her want to scream in frustration, but there was nothing she could do about that now. She would have to make due with what she had.

"Are you all right?" she asked, helping Nobby to stand on unsteady legs and checking on the ugly bruises around his neck. "What happened?" 

Nobby's hands were shaking like peas on a snare drum as he tried to locate any remaining nicotine behind his bruised ears.

"Dunno, Sarge" he said in a raspy voice. "One moment I'm walkin' down the road and next thing I know someone jumps me from behind, tryin' to strangle me for no reason!"

"And then what happened?"

"I . . . " Nobby scratched his head and winced as he came upon the lump. "I'm not too sure. We was fightin', and to tell you the truth, I dunno if I could've fought him off, 'cause he was really strong—"

Angua looked at Nobby's toothpick arms and toast-rack chest but said nothing.

"—but then just as I thought that I was gonna croak someone else must've joined the fight, 'cause he din't finish the job. Dunno who, though. I must've got hit over the head round 'bout then, 'cause I don't remember anythin' after that."

"Attacking a poor, defenceless woman like me," Nobby said, shaking his head. "_And_ he was dressed in women's clothing, too," he added, his outrage audible. 

Angua still didn't say anything. Clutching Nobby's garment around herself to protect her modesty, she bent down to pick up something that was half hidden in the gutter where Nobby had been lying. It was wet and limp and hung in her hand like a rope end. 

She showed it to Nobby, who took one look at it and fainted.

It was a donkey tail.

-----

The sun was starting to come up again when Angua arrived back at her lodgings at Mrs Cake's after having taken care of Nobby over in the Yard. 

Her whole body was aching by now. It may be true that nothing but silver could kill a werewolf, Angua thought, but that didn't mean that she couldn't get hurt. Her entire organism was shouting at her to get some rest.

She had waited for the other watchmen to catch up with them once more and had told them what had happened before helping the beat-up corporal back to the Watch's headquarters. The rest of them had stayed behind to search the surrounding area for any traces of the madman, but Angua felt no real hope that they would find him. 

When they got back to the Yard, Constable Dorfl had met them in the doorway and had carried Nobby into Igor's rooms in the basement of the Watch house for an examination. Apart from a light concussion and some ugly, black bruises on his neck and back he was relatively okay, even though he was still very upset about the dressing habits of his attacker. Angua had changed into civilian clothes, taken some foul-smelling medicine that Igor had recommended and had limped upstairs to see her commanding officer. 

Mister Vimes had told her precisely what the situation was like, that even if they were to find the Donkey they would be forced to let him go, _and_ would most likely get into trouble, at that. 

The game was up, so she would have to get what few possessions she had brought with her to the boarding house, pay up and go back to her normal life, if that was the word for it. She might as well get it over with as soon as possible.

Angua walked up to the door and was just about to open it, when Mrs. Cake opened it for her. 

"No matter, I was going out to the market anyway," answered Mrs. Cake without so much as looking at the dirt and twigs in Angua's hair1.

"Oh, er . . . Thank you," Angua said, confused.

"Yes, you're right, sorry, I'll switch it off," offered the woman in the doorway.

Angua stared blankly at her landlady for several moments.

"Have you got your premonition on again as a precaution, Mrs. Cake?" she asked, carefully2. 

The rotund woman inserted a finger in her ear and twiddled it around for a bit.

"That's better now," she said, smiling at Angua, "So today is the big day, is it?"

"Big day?" Angua was completely confused. She was too tired to think straight. She had been awake well for over twenty-four hours now, her feet were aching, her ribs were screaming murder and her brain felt like a helping of Sham Harga's special sludge porridge.

"Yes, dear, it's your big day today, isn't it?" said Mrs. Cake, "I can't say I really approve of it, but there are worse ways to make a living, I'm sure." 

Not knowing what to say, Angua just looked at her.

"Oh, didn't I tell you? I found this under the door when I got the milk," Mrs Cake continued. "Well, I'm off to churches. Best of luck, now!"

With that, Mrs. Cake handed over an envelope to Angua, bustled down the stairs and was lost in the morning mists.

Angua looked at the folded paper in her hand. It bore the seal of the Guild of Seamstresses. She opened it, and only then did her tired mind catch up with events. Today was the date of her and Nobby's exam.

1 Evadne Cake's own daughter Ludmilla was a werewolf, and this had meant that Mrs. Cake had a rather more relaxed view on breaking curfews and coming home with your clothes in a state of array than did most parents of respectable daughters.

Ludmilla had married Lupine, a wereman, and together they ran the best-guarded chicken farm this side of Genua.

2 It always took Angua a little while to get used to Mrs. Cake's own form of conversation. The medium (bordering on small) often used her premonition without noticing herself, but was insistent that her conversation partners asked the questions she had already answered, since she claimed that she got terrible headaches otherwise.


	7. 7

Angua found herself back in the reception room of the Guild less than an hour later. The letter had specified this early hour and Angua was too tired to disobey. And anyway, she had to do this if she was to avoid being exposed as a fraud. All she had to do was fail miserably in her exam, and she could walk away from all this, never to look back again.

She had washed herself quickly back at her lodgings and had put on cleaner clothes, but that didn't help much. She knew that she was considered by many to be an undead1, but this was the first time she had actually had an idea what, say, zombies might feel like.

She told the lizard woman at the reception disk about the fact that Bethi wouldn't be taking her test today, due to overexertion in the line of duty. The lizard gave her a look of absolute scorn that Angua suspected that she must have been practising since their last encounter, but didn't say anything.

There were no other girls present, so Angua did what all people do in empty waiting rooms while waiting to be admitted to an exam: she sat down as far away from the receptionist as possible, fidgeted nervously for a while and then picked up a magazine at random. 

She started to flick through its pages without much interest until she realised what the magazine was about, and then put it down very quickly. She leafed through the pile on the coffee table next to her in order to see if there was anything else, but it was all the same stuff. 

Of course, in this particular place it was probably required reading, Angua thought. There was a distinct lack of knitting patterns in these publications, she noted, but there _was_ a fair bit of instructive schemes on practical anatomy2.

Finally, the lizard woman came out of her little booth and stood in the doorway. Even though there was no one else around, she still consulted her notepad very carefully before calling out:

"'Fifi Fangue'?"

She looked around the room and seemed very surprised to find Angua in it. Then, with an impatient gesture she indicated that Angua should follow her, and together they trooped off down a corridor. 

They finally came to a halt in front of an impressive pair of double doors. In spite herself, Angua felt her stomach fill with the butterflies of doom that are an unavoidable feature ahead of every exam everywhere.

The doors were opened, and Angua was shown into a homey parlour, where the President of the Seamstresses' Guild awaited her at a table set with breakfast for two.

"Why, good morning, Sergeant. I've been expecting you." 

-----

"I trust that your partner is recovering well?" Mrs. Palm said pleasantly as soon as the door had closed behind Angua.

In a long night of unpleasant surprises, this took the price. Angua was lost for words. She knew! The thought repeated itself over and over in her mind, but she couldn't come to terms with it.

Mrs. Palm made a small gesture towards the chair and waited. Angua realised that she was panting with pent-up rage, and fought it down, before finally trusting herself to sit down.

"You _knew_ we were there all the time?" Angua couldn't help herself. "But how?"

"Oh, come now, Sergeant," Mrs. Palm said pleasantly as she sipped her tea, "Even without – Bethi – we would have spotted you sooner or later, but I'll freely admit that you made things easier for us, certainly."

"I mean to say, "Bethi"? Not even the men of Ankh-Morpork are that perverted, Sergeant," Mrs. Palm continued.

"Not many, at least," she added as an afterthought.

"But we, that is to say I, could have sneaked away at any moment," Angua retorted with a conviction she didn't really feel, "After all, the Agony Aunts only came around twice per night!"

The look Angua received this time was priceless.

"Really? You think we wouldn't keep you under surveillance?"

"What?!" Angua was shaken. Even with her current sinus problems, she should have been able to spot a shadow easily.

"Why, yes, dear," Mrs. Palm, "Surely you must have realised that not all those, ah, potential clients were real?"

Angua sagged with relief, despite herself.

"You mean the accountant types were spies? I _knew_ it coul—" 

Mrs. Palm just smiled.

A contemplative silence descended over the breakfast table, only to be broken by the clink of minute silverware against fine aurient3.

"OK, I can see that you're not going to change your mind on this, but I assure you that the Watch could have taken him," Angua said gruffly.

Mrs. Palm gave Angua a look of pity. 

"Really? We spotted you straight away, you and that little gnome-like man, and I am sure the same is true for our so-called Donkey."

Angua didn't know what to say. It was probably true, she thought. The attack a couple of hours ago might be proof of that.

Again, they sat in silence for a while, and then Mrs. Palm spoke again.

"You know," she said, "If I hadn't become a seamstress, I would have liked to work as a psycholologist." 

"A what?"

"A psycholologist. I reckon it's pretty much the same thing anyway, only a couch is less comfortable, of course."

"What's your point?" asked Angua. She couldn't help but respect the woman, but she was damned if she was going to show her that.

"We-ell," said Mrs. Palm, "Everyone knows that the Aunts are keen amateur retro-phrenologists4, right? And that's all well and good in their line of work" – she looked over to Angua, who shuddered – "as rehabilitators, but I just can't help but wonder if there isn't more to it than that."

"Can't see the idea of a Guild of Psycholologists taking off, though," Mrs. Palm sighed.

"I'm sorry," Angua said in a voice that made it clear that she wasn't, "but I still don't see what you're talking about."

"All right," said Mrs. Palm, "let me give you an example: You know your man used to stay with me and my girls when he first arrived here in town?"

"Carrot is not my man," Angua replied, out of habit. The subject was not one that she cared to discuss.

Mrs. Palm just smiled at her. 

"Whatever you say, dear," she said, "but my point _is_, that young Ironfundersson could have got any one of my girls if he wanted to. They were all falling head over heels for him, breaking the first rule of our profession, and yet he didn't take advantage of the situation. Makes you think, doesn't it?"

"This man, however," she continued, "this so-called Donkey is your typical rabid dog, and there is only one thing to do for them. It's sad, perhaps, but what can you do? It's a dog eat dog world after all. But maybe one day we could change all that – with the help of psycholology. Who knows?"

Angua listened, but didn't really hear. There was something else that had been prying on her mind for quite some time now, and she wanted her suspicions confirmed.

"You could've told us that the Donkey was wearing women's clothes all along!" she growled accusingly, "You must've known about it from the start, and yet you said nothing!"

Mrs. Palm sighed.

"No, we couldn't tell you that, Sergeant. Can you imagine what it would have done for our trade if it had been known that this Donkey person was someone who looked exactly like a seamstress?"

Angua didn't say anything, but just sat there and stared at the guild president.

"We have had our eyes on this fellow for quite a while," Mrs. Palm said when she had served Angua a cup and given her a chance to add a sip of milk. "All we needed was for him to make one false move and we could get him. When he attacked Corporal Nobbs - one of our members - without paying, Dottie and Sadie made their move." 

"What? You've got him? You _got_ the Donkey??"

"Oh, surely you don't think we would let him get away with something like that, do you?"

"But, but . . . Where is he now? And why didn't you do anything before if you _knew_ . . .?" 

"We _do_ have rules, you know," Mrs. Palm added when she saw the look of utter disbelief on Angua's face.

"So where is he now? And _who is he_?"

Mrs. Palm didn't seem to hear her. 

-----

Angua walked along the wall of the Seamstresses' Guildhouse, lost in thoughts. It had been an extremely interesting conversation with Mrs. Palm, even though the most urgent questions remained unaccounted for. Where was the Donkey now? And who was he? 

The guild president had simply refused to say anything on the subject. Instead she had said that it had been an interesting experience for all involved, and had wished Angua every success in her future endeavours in a very motherly way5. 

Suddenly her nostrils flared as if they had a life of their own. She became aware of a familiar odour in the morning air. It was a scent that even her battered nose would have been able to recognise anywhere. Blood.

She quickly located the source of the smell. It was the kitchen entrance round the back of the Guild, where a dozen or more of the city's many street dogs were making a feast of what looked like a large number of discarded sausages. There were a lot of dogs there already, and more and more were arriving at the scene. Those already there were wolfing it down as quickly as possible. Soon, nothing would be left. 

But something was wrong, Angua knew. She couldn't put her finger on what it was, because there was something wrong with the smell itself somehow. When she stood there, trying to get her tired brain to tell her what it was, the wind changed and another, equally intrusive smell emanated from a dark corner a couple of meters away. It was the smell of a wet, old carpet that had had one too many run-ins with an incontinent grandmother. It was a foul stench, and Angua knew it well.

"Gaspode?"

"Yesh?" The voice was indistinct, but Angua recognised it.

"Gaspode, is that you?" Stupid question, she thought. How many talking dogs are there in Ankh-Morpork?

"It'sh me awlright," Gaspode conceded. "Grab a bite, bitch."

Angua growled, making Gaspode whine pathetically. Now she could see why his voice was muddled. In the small dog's jaws was an enormous sausage that he was working his way through even as he spoke.

"Awlright, awlright," he whined, before gobbling down the outsized chunk of sausage he had ripped off, "No need to get upset now! I just happened to be in the neighbourhood, is all."

"You _never_ just happened to be _anywhere_, Gaspode," Angua said in a harder tone of voice than she had intended.

"Okay, you got me," Gaspode admitted unabashedly, "The Seamstresses' cook dumps whatever leftovers she has on Iosdays, and as you can see," he added, flicking an ear in the general direction of the pack, "it's well worth showing up for."

Angua looked over to the writhing mass of scrawny dogs and back to Gaspode and his sausage again. She still couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Then it hit her.

"So how come you're eating something altogether different from them, Gaspode?" she asked.

""What? You mean you can't tell?" Gaspode's face expressed disbelief in the way only a dog can.

"What?" Angua said, irritated.

"Too close to home? Or to the doghouse, perhaps," Gaspode grinned, but it was a sickly grin. "Let's just say that ain't the usual fare they're having over there. Too dim to realise it, of course, but catch this dog having some of that? Nope, I don't _think_ so!"

Angua looked again at the rapidly disappearing meat, remembering something that Mrs. Palm had said, her words echoing in her head, almost drowning out the words of Gaspode, as he droned on the background.

". . . this man . . . this so-called Donkey . . . is a rabid dog . . ."

". . . you know, I always figured that we would cast off our leashes one day and return to the wild, but that sure ain't the way I imagined it would happen . . ."

". . . only one thing you can do . . ."

". . . I think it's sick. I'm not sayin' that I haven't heard of dogs up at Small Gods' from time to time, when there's nothing else to be 'ad, say, in the middle o' winter, like . . ."

". . . it's a dog eat dog world . . ."

". . .but at least you could have the, like, decency to bury them proper, like, and not let us do the dirty, style o' fing," Gaspode finished, only now noticing that he didn't have his audience' full attention.

". . . dog eat dog . . ."

Angua's stomach turned and then she did the same and fled from the scene. She didn't register Gaspode howling after her in surprise, didn't stop to listen to the excited street dogs fighting one another for the last scraps. She couldn't bear looking at it, couldn't stand the smell, and most of all couldn't stomach the knowledge that she had wished this fate upon the man, no matter how much he might have deserved it.

She fled towards the Yard and to Carrot's loving arms. She didn't pause to think, but if she had formulated the need that had suddenly possessed her, it might have sounded thus:

In a world as rotten as this there has to be something pure, something good, and right now, for her, that meant her love for Carrot, and his for her. 

She didn't stop running until she was there.

-----

The sun rose once more over Ankh-Morpork, greatest of cities on the Disc. 

In the fields around the city the birds and the bees are already busy, ensuring that the circle of life turns once more. Elsewhere, in the city, in an upstairs room in the Watch house, something very similar is happening, but we won't go into that. 

Maybe the seamstresses are right in saying that all such dealings are of a commercial nature, after all, since all the participants have something to gain from it, but if so, then such are the economics of Life.

In a back alley in the Shades, behind the Seamstresses' Guildhouse, all that remained was a little greasy patch on the ground. It wasn't anything revolutionary in itself, but who knows, maybe that smidgen of grease will ensure that the wheel of life turns just a little bit easier this year?

*****

1 The latest research showed that lycantrophy was most likely caused by a virus, to which people said "Invisible creatures in the bloodstream? Bollocks to that!"

2 Pornography has always been the driving force of any new medium of communication, and the Discworld's newfangled printed media was no exception. Birgitta Goodmountain was facing stiff competition. Literally.

3 One of the main exports from the Counterweight Continent these days were cups and saucers and plates made of a fine, bone-like material that was remarkably like our world's china.

4 The idea that the shape of a person's head determined the owner's personality had been taken to its logical conclusion by the citizens of Ankh-Morpork, who figured that it was just a matter of finding out where to hit in order to achieve the right bumps. The Aunts were enthusiastic researchers. 

5 While at the same time hinting at the fact that she thought Angua could have done a lot better (also in a very motherly way).


	8. Author's notes

YES! My first ever complete fanfic!! What a great feeling this is! If it weren't for the insomnia and the sudden panic attacks – hang on! That's someone else's thank you-speech! 

Who am I trying to kid here? I want to thank you, yes YOU, dear reader, for having travelled this far with me, and a very special thank you to all the people who have reviewed my efforts along the way. It is a wonderful feeling to have people care enough to actually offer you their constructive views and opinions, and I am humbled by the experience! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Although all reviewers are equally appreciated, there is a special place in my heart for all those who have continually helped me, and to whom I am especially indebted: 

Thank you lady B Vimes – sorely missed – and Manx, my counterweight friend far away. Thank you to Dreamkin – my italics guru – thank you Vee and Gok (I'm sorry I never told you what it was Angua said (or did)), and Yap, my first ever (?) German fan, and to all the rest of you – you have truly carried me on your shoulders.

Like I wrote in my bio some time ago, this whole story sprung from a couple of throwaway lines in "Wheels of Fortune" (that haven't been published yet). In spite of its humble origins, though, and in spite of the fact that the story only covers about twelve hours of RDT1, I still feel that it has a point to it that made it worth telling2. I'm not big on Judaism, Christianity or Islam and what they have done to our world, preferring instead the more measured approach found in Buddhism. Thus it was natural to depict the story's madman as a fanatic of an unspecified caricature of the former, in a world governed by rules of nature more in line with the latter. And a world in which he ultimately serves a higher purpose, at that – quite the opposite to what one might have thought. 

Of course, when I was nearly finished, I realised that this story was anything but new. After all, when the One God was made flesh on Roundworld, his preferred mode of transportation was a humble donkey. Only no one ever asked about _its_ fate. Go figure. It's all karma, in the end.

Anyway. I shall get back to "Wheels" now, and then there are couple of other ideas sloshing about in the clogged up aquarium I call my brain . . . Must write . . . Must . . . 

1Real Discworld Time.

2 It's just a blessing that I don't feel that way about all my scribblings, or I'd be stuck in front of the computer for life (although I seem to recall that someone thought that a good idea . . . You know who you are!).


End file.
